What's new at The Loft - Episode 116

MY LIFE IS A CREATIVE WORK IN PROGRESS

I have many times in the past looked over how my focus has shifted from one hobby to another, and wondered what my friends and family must think of me.  I think my husband and kids find me insane at how my creative focus keeps shifting from one pursuit to another.  In moments of self reflection I have discovered a lot of things about myself and why I am the way I am, and why I can't seem to focus on any one creative pursuit.  Instead of relating this always changing focus to some sort of attention disorder, I have begun to realize that it stems from a desire to learn. 

I've never been one for school but I was always most happiest in school in my classes that dealt more with a creative nature than traditional subjects and book reading.  These many  "hobbies" (my latest passion is mini art quilts) I've pursued over the years come from my own endless need for creative learning.  More over they are an integral part of who I am, even in those times in my life when they could only be seen in the smallest measure.  I love to create, and it's a passion that burns inside me brightly and at times is so strong that I find it difficult to focus on other things.  On days when I'm so tired and stressed from my "day" job that all I want to do is pop in a movie and relax I still find myself planning out my next project, looking for inspiration, or just trying to work out problems with projects I've put temporarily on hold.  I also often find that some of my best ideas or problem resolution comes when I'm trying to drift off to sleep, which is why I have gotten into the habit of leaving a note pad and pen on my nightstand.

The downside of course is that there always comes a stumping point of for me in the creative process.  In my own desire to be more artistically creative, I find that original thought becomes more and more of an obstacle.  I want to do something creative but I confound myself with too much thinking about originality, instead of more creative "play".  But inspiration sometimes is just a matter of how you look and interpret things, or perhaps just a matter of recycling what you have already done.

 For those of you who have read my blog for a while, you are probably already familiar with my 2010 ATC 3.6.5 challenge, where each day I made one ATC per day for the whole year.  Two years later staring at 150 of those cards which now sit at a giant piece of wall art in my living room, (photo of canvas) it hit me that I had 365 days of inspiration and original thought so why not just change the medium and turn some of these into mini art quilts.

One of my favorite ATC's I created during the challenge was an original piece called "The Tree of Four Seasons".  I selected this one because it was colorful and the design could be replicated simply.

Here is the fabric version, what do you think?

The muslin base was divided into quadrants for one color to represent each season and then I began layering the specific colors to their quadrant.I used a free motion stitch to hold all in place once I had the background looking the way I wanted to. 

I used embroidery floss and more free motion stitching to embellish the circles.

 

 

This was a fun project and really helped jump start more creative ideas I have for additional mini art quilts which I will share with you in the future.


MORE RICHARD ARMITAGE

Further to my June 12th post which had a small segment at the bottom called "My Mother's Day breakfast with Richard Armitage" I was so excited to learn that Mr. Armitage would in fact be attending the San Diego Comic-Con 2012 in July to promote The Hobbit.  My hubby attended Comic-Con again this year but unfortunately he did not win the lottery for a spot in the autograph signing line, however I was more than thrilled when he sent me a few photos back. 

Here's a poster of Mr. Armitage in costume as Thorin

They also had a life sized replica of Mr. Amitage's character from The Hobbit on display.

Of course here is what he normally looks like without the beard

Thanks for stopping by today.  I'm working on a few new concepts and look forward to sharing more of my work in the future.  As always comments are welcome so feel free to send me a note and let me know what you think. 

Bye for now